writer, editor, modernist, and geek

What’s so hard about my life, anyway?

It’s a fair question. Many people talk about how they would love a life where they spend most of their time at home with their child. Writers often talk about how they’d love to not have a day job, to spend hours a day with nothing to do but write. So what could I – a mom, a freelancer, a college student, without a day job – have to complain about?

The fantasy of staying home only works when you have support. You need a way to pay the bills, a way to get a break from the childcare (if that’s part of your life), a group of people to share and interact with. What if you didn’t have that?

I live with my son in a small college town, on the opposite coast from where I grew up. I have one person in this town. He’s a wonderful person, he’s everything that I could want him to be, but he’s the only one I’ve got to lean on. I have no friends close by. I have no family. My mother lives in California, and not only is she raising my nephew, she was in an accident a few years ago that left her with multiple pins and plates in her leg. After pt and more surgeries, she’s starting to be able to walk again, but hasn’t yet been able to fly out to visit.

My son’s father’s family isn’t in his life. His father decided that he didn’t want a child with a disability, that having to visit on time or pay child support were too much trouble, and so he disappeared about five years ago. His parents, my son’s paternal grandparents, have other grandchildren they’d rather spend their time on. Grandkids that talk.

My son doesn’t, much. He has Childhood Apraxia of Speech, also known as Verbal Dyspraxia. It’s a bit like dyslexia for words. He understands a lot of what you say to him; he’s smart enough that even without language, he can operate computers, phones, video games. He’s pretty certain he knows how to drive a car. (No, I don’t let him.) He’s in the right math class for his grade. He can get by, with help, in mainstream class, with typical kids. But he’s got what we call “a Doctor Suess vocabulary”. He can regularly get out about as many words as a typical toddler. But he’s almost a teenager, with all the thoughts and interests of any 12 year old. Worse, he’s known since he was a little child that he has a speech disorder. He has so much he wants to say, but he can’t get it out.

Imagine how frustrating that would be.

When he has a bad day, I’m who he has. When his school isn’t giving him what he needs, I’m his advocate. When he’s sick, I’m who stays home with him. When he can’t be in school, I can’t be at work. When he’s angry at himself, which is every day, I’m there to help him calm down, take a breath, find the words he’s struggling to get out. I replace his shirts when he’s chewed through them – a bad habit he can’t seem to break, since it’s how he deals with the constant pressure of facial muscles that won’t do exactly what he needs them to do. I try to figure out how to teach him all of the little things you usually pick up from conversations he’s not yet capable to having.

He doesn’t spend the night at a friend’s house. He doesn’t go to grandma’s for the weekend. If I go to a convention, I have to hire a babysitter. (When I went to DragonCon, I had to hire three, so there would be enough coverage for the whole weekend.) I run errands when he’s at school, or in the middle of the night when he’s sleeping. I worry, all the time, about what his life will be when he’s 16, 18, 20, 30…

To have a real dayjob, I need to be able to hire someone to be with my son when I can’t. The kind of jobs I’ve been able to get so far don’t pay enough for that. Going to college for a degree in business – a field with much greater job opportunities – is my chance to be employed with a salary that will pay for the help I need to make certain my son has his best chance at life. My best chance at life, too.

I have this dream that one day, I’ll have a day job that pays the bills. I’ll be able to stop spending all of my “free time” chasing clients, and instead I’ll be able to write as much as I want, instead of stealing hours from sleep and studying. I’ll be able to go on a date with my person, instead of spending every night at home with my son. (We love him! But leaving the house sounds really nice, too.) I will be able to take my son to the waterpark he asked to go to all summer, or buy him new clothes each time he gets taller.

I’ll have a life that isn’t juggling expenses to figure out which I can pay and which I can ignore, paying my rent three weeks late (like I did this month), and being afraid, all the time, that something will happen I can’t fix.

To get there, I need to get through this semester. To do that, I need your help. I don’t have family to turn to you. I just have all of you.